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New Haven polling station workers carrying boxes of pre-voted Ned Lamont ballots.
(actually, these are Peruvians carrying ballots in Peru, but…you get the idea)

It’s always puzzled me that CT Republicans tolerate this “open secret” that CT Democrats in the three failed cities of Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport will, when needed in a close race, manufacture thousands of phony ballots in order to put the Democratic candidate ahead. A recent case of this was Governor Malloy’s 2010 victory over Republican Tom Foley by just 6,404 votes.

If it’s 5:00 PM on election day and it looks like their guy might get edged out by a relatively small number of votes, the Democrats will apparently use one of two techniques to fix things:

The first trick is to claim “polling station irregularities have made it impossible for people to vote, so we must keep the stations opened for several more hours”. Claims of insufficient numbers of paper ballots, or malfunctioning voting machines are used to convince a friendly judge to issue the order to keep the stations opened. Workers then rush around and gather up reliable Democrat voters and bus them to the polls. After a few hours of that, the deficit is made up and the Democrat wins.

The other technique is to simply print up thousands of phony ballots, already filled out for the Democratic candidates, and keep them in sealed bags at key polling stations in New Haven and elsewhere and release whatever number is needed to fill the gap.

Republican officials I have spoken to believe this second method was the one used to produce Malloy’s slightly improved victory over Foley in 2014’s re-match, winning by around 25,000 votes.

I’ve done an extensive internet search to see if maybe Republicans are also accused of pulling this kind of stunt anywhere in the nation but it looks like this crime is exclusively Democrat. So why do we allow it? How hard would it be to send Federal observers to some of these trouble spots? Former Attorney General Eric Holder certainly had no problem sending observers down to southern states when he suspected “voter suppression” (aka, asking for photo identification) so let’s try it in Connecticut!

1 Bramble Lane, Riverside, asking $4.295M, now has deal, my guess, closes around $4.150M. Back in June, 2008, the builder unloaded it for $4,050,000, probably thinking he’d made a narrow escape, but Riverside hung in there!. Can any other part of Town promise that kind of hold on value? List: Russ Pruner Sell: Barbara Wells

Those who know me well, know that I don’t throw words like “zippy” around lightly. No, I understand the significance of the word, and only use it when absolutely justified. Therefore, let me state for the record that we are experiencing a ZIPPY market!

Am I aware that the dominant political party in Hartford has taken us down the road-to-ruin, to the point where our finances now resemble pathetic Puerto Rico and Illinois? Yes, I am aware. If you actually add up all the (un-payable) billions and billions and billions we owe to the municipal-union pension funds, the State of CT is already effectively bankrupt. Not pretty.

And yet… people clearly still want to live in Fairfield County. Why is this? Are they unaware of the impending doom? Do they think a (Republican) savior will emerge?

Who knows. What I do know is that last year, as of this date, we’d had 89 closings. This year, same time period, we’re up to 169 (plus another 73 pending). That’s serious improvement.

The fly-in-the-ointment *? Of course, it’s the super high-end, just 3 sales this year for $8M+. 3 sales! Now we only have to get rid of the other 68 sitting on the market and we’re home free!

So why do Greenwich sales start to dwindle down when you pass the $6M mark? The reason stated above, certainly, but added to our miserable State financial picture, there’s the State’s continuing “war on the rich”, and the very, very rich don’t have to take it. If you’re a poor schlub barely making enough to spend $5,000,000 on a home, your work probably still ties you to the New York area. But I guarantee you that the $20,000,000 buyer is not tied to the New York area. And for now, that’s who’s leaving. You might think of them as canaries in the coal mine…

What? It’s January, for heaven’s sake, yer telling me someone can’t top a lousy $19,250,000 sale before December 31, 2017?? Yes, that’s what I’m saying and I base this prediction on my recent conversations with high-end buyers and fellow brokers.

Bloomberg estimates “equities’ global market value has jumped $2 TRILLION since the election”., so our high-end buyers are feeling confident of the future, right? The answer is yes and no. They are confident of the national economy’s continued improvement, but they are uniformly concerned about Connecticut’s economy and its tax picture. Not one buyer or broker I spoke to expects (those idiots in) Hartford to do anything but more harm to Fairfield County.

General Electric’s recent departure is certainly the biggest “canary in the coal mine” so far, but plenty of lower profile financial services companies and hedge-funds have also cleared out, not to mention a gun company or two.

So, as Connecticut’s Governor Malloy and his legislative allies proudly maintain our fair state’s “business unfriendly” atmosphere, most expect it to get worse this year. And let’s not forget our big, fat estate tax, which chases away older zillionaires on a regular basis.

So yeah, it’s great to see such a big land sale, it’s encouraging, by golly. I just wish it was the beginning of a trend.

Note: that address-link for 60 Oneida Drive works better on your desktop than your mobile device.

RTM member, Chris von Keyserling, on his way to full membership in the Tod Akin Club!

I knew this story had, shall we say, legs, when the details started to “evolve”. First it was a pinch on the buttocks, then it became “the groin area”, and finally, the media has settled on “genitals”. And the perpetrator, Chris von Keyserling, was quickly promoted!

His actual position as one of 225 members of Greenwich’s Representative Town Meeting, was determined to be not good enough for the media’s purposes, so he immediately became a “Republican official’, then that was improved to a “Republican politician”, and now, in addition to the last two, he’s risen to “Chair of the RTM”. Isn’t it amazing how, with a little media help, his career is improving!

Oh, and the incident occurred at our local old folks home (Nathaniel Witherell Center), but that was deemed an odd, possibly harmful detail, so now it’s become “an unnamed Town facility”.

Why all this trouble to “groom” the story? Why is it about to get the full NATIONAL MEDIA treatment? Because, unfortunately for the eccentric, often amusing Mr.von Keyserling, he has voluntarily provided all the ingredients of an irresistible story-line.

Whether you’re a recent graduate of the Howard Zynn School of Journalism, or a grizzled news veteran plugging away at your little New York Times cubical, you wake up each day with the identical agenda. It’s not actually written on parchment, framed, and hung on the wall of every newsroom in the country, but it doesn’t need to be, it’s understood by all…

Anything that embarrasses, disparages, or destroys Republicans will be immediately placed at the top of the news list.

Every day of their working lives, eager reporters sit and wait for something, anything that fulfills this mission. Whatever it is, whoever it is, they can use it.

And it doesn’t matter how obscure the political figure is. Think Tod Akin, unknown Missouri US Representative, who made the idiotic remark that “legitimate rape doesn’t cause pregnancy”. Or remember that poor sap, Idaho Senator Larry Craig, caught nudging his foot against another chap’s in an airport men’s room? Or Congressman Mark Foley, discovered sending little love notes to a male intern? You wouldn’t know any of those names if they’d been Democrats, and their stories, if they were exposed at all, would never have travelled beyond the borders of their individual states. Sadly for them, they were Republicans, so they were elevated to national status.

So, sorry Chris, old chum, but that’s the world we live in. You have unfortunately become “useful” to the media machine, and you will now be used and used, until a better story comes along!

Like me, you are endlessly fascinated by politics, to the point where you even go to YouTube and watch old JFK press conferences, which are really, really entertaining.

But there’s a difference between those days and the situation today. The press loved JFK and you can see and hear it in these videos. In contrast, the press has a deep, DEEP hatred and fear of Donald Trump, and in fact, it is their (latest) attempt to destroy him that prompted this press conference.

The video runs over an hour, but I think it’s the most compelling live-history I’ve ever experienced. This story about Trump and his alleged escapades at a Moscow hotel is classic political warfare, and the way he has handled it is very much worth watching.

P.S. At minute-25, Trump turns over the microphone for a few minutes as lawyer Sheri Dillon painstakingly explains the extreme measures Trump has taken to isolate himself from his businesses so as to avoid any possibility, any semblance of conflict of interest. Ms. Dillon is impressive, and her presentation is fascinating all by itself. If Bill and Hillary could have done even 1/100th of this, Hill would be the president-elect today.

The always fair, always impartial, Lester Holt. Critics accuse him of clear bias in his (now revealed) choice of questions for the candidates.

NBC has confirmed that unknown hackers were able to invade an internal e-mail system and gain access to news reader Lester Holt’s private communications. The hackers have released at least some of the questions that Holt planned to ask each of the candidates in the first of three Presidential debates.

Critics are already reacting to what they term “soft-ball” questions for Mrs. Clinton, but an NBC spokesperson said they stand by Mr. Holt’s question choices. You be the judge:

Question one, for Mrs. Clinton:

“Madam Secretary, you have been accused of caring too deeply about America’s children. How do you respond?”

Question one, for Mr. Trump:

“There are four rival factions fighting for control of Syria, the Harakat Hazm movement, the Salafi jihadists, the powerful Jabhat al-Nusra militia, and the Syrian Revolutionairies Front of Jamal Ma’arouf. Discuss each of these groups and tell us which, if any, should the US be supporting?”

Question two, for Mrs. Clinton:

“During your time in the White House with former President Bill Clinton, you had a beloved cat named “Socks”. What was his favorite food?”

Question two, Mr. Trump:

“How many of your children did you molest, and when did you stop?”

Question three, Mrs. Clinton:

“What are the three worst things America should know about Donald Trump?”

Question three, Mr. Trump:

“Economist Milton Friedman and others have long argued that the US economy’s “money supply” figures, notably M1 and M2, provide critical information about the near-term course of the economy. Should Central Banks and the Federal Reserve go back to a largely money supply-oriented view, or should the present course of relying on a wide array of financial and economic data be continued?”

Question four, Mrs. Clinton:

“You’ve said on a number of occasions that your favorite color is blue. Would you tell us why you feel this way?”

Question four, Mr. Trump:

“If you are elected, will you specifically rule out appointing former KKK leader David Duke as a member of your cabinet?”

President Obama, delivering the first of ten condolence speeches for future terror attack victims.

Friday, July 15, 2016. Washington, D.C. In anticipation of at least ten more major Islamic terrorist attacks during his remaining time in office, President Obama today took the unusual step of pre-recording condolences speeches for each attack.

Mimicking the methods of television game shows, which record multiple episodes in a single day, the President wore different outfits for each speech, and limited his remarks to his usual platitudes about “bringing these perpetrators to justice”, “our hearts go out to the (future) victims”, and everyone’s favorite., “This has nothing to do with Islam”.

After the speeches, the President briefly spoke with reporters, taking issue with the website “TheReligionOfPeace.com” and its posting of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of horrific Islamist attacks world-wide (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/terror-2016.htm).

“The notion that listing all the attacks carried out so far this year, the number of victims, and the way they were murdered, does anyone any good is just wrong. All it does is attempt to distract us from the real threats we face, like climate change and police misconduct”., the President said.

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I've been selling real estate in Greenwich for 30 years (but not while wearing a bathing suit). During this time I've learned that brokers owe a fiduciary duty to their selling clients, their buying clients, even to people who merely happen to approach them with a real estate question. So there's my method: honest answers, no sleazy tricks, it's worked out well!
P.S. Any business that gets a plug in this blog gets it for free, I accept no payments, reduced-price-of-service, nothing, nada, zilch.